


Tea For Two

by DameRuth



Series: Concerning Smith and Jones [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alien Biology, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24949636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: Martha and the Doctor take a break for tea, and sample some exotic flavors.[Continuing the Teaspoon imports, originally posted 2007.05.31. A personal favorite, because the idea still makes me smile.]
Series: Concerning Smith and Jones [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805668
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Tea For Two

**Author's Note:**

> Random little scene that popped into my mind. Personally, I think Martha and the Doc could use a few quieter "bonding" moments like this in the series, so this is my attempt to fill in.
> 
> * * *

  
“Ah! Tea!” the Doctor announced, his face lighting up.  
  
He and Martha were sitting in a tearoom at a little round table with a white linen tablecloth, sharing a plate of fried sweet pastries that might almost have been sugar-glazed doughnut bites. The sign outside advertised “real Ancient Earth atmosphere,” and the proprietors _had_ tried. The décor was almost plausibly 21st century Earth, but their waiter spoiled the effect, having sixteen green, scaly arms on an eight-foot tall body.  
  
Sixteen arms were useful, though, seeing as how the Doctor had systematically gone through the menu and ordered one of everything for himself — plus a cup of Earl Grey for Martha.  
  
The cups and saucers were fine white porcelain, with a border decoration of hand-painted flowers — they wouldn’t have looked out of place in Martha’s Gran’s china cupboard . . . except for the fact that, on close examination, the flowers were of no recognizable terrestrial species.  
  
The Doctor happily busied himself arranging the numerous cups of steaming liquid into an array that apparently made some sort of sense to him, but none to Martha. She sipped her tea (which tasted exactly like Earl Grey should), distracted, and watched the Doctor choose his first sample. He picked up the teacup normally enough . . . and then spoiled the effect by leaning over it and _lapping_ at the surface of the brick-red infusion.  
  
Martha almost jumped. She was starting to get used to the Doctor’s eccentricities, but his preferred method of chemical analysis still freaked her out, just a little.  
  
The Doctor smacked his lips thoughtfully, and raised his expressive eyebrows. “Tasty — nice alkaloid zing, and a faint aftertaste of phenol. It’d make a fabulous cold medicine, if it wasn’t mildly toxic at the same time . . .”  
  
He set the cup neatly back onto its saucer, and moved on to repeat the performance with the next cup (a pale amber brew). Martha nibbled fried pastries and listened to the nonstop patter of chemical analysis from her tablemate.  
  
About halfway through his collection he stopped to nibble a pastry as a palate-cleanser, and Martha had to ask, “Can you _really_ taste all of that, all the chemical structures?”  
  
“’Course I can. Weeeelll,” he frowned consideringly, “I couldn’t give you a full chemical structure unless it was something I recognized, but I can taste all the major functional groups — which tells me most of what I need to know about reactive properties. If I want a full structure, I’ll run it through a gas chromatograph. Got one kicking around in a pocket, I think . . .” He shrugged, and moved on to the next cup of experimental tea.  
  
He lapped the surface, and one eyebrow went up while the other went down. Looking startled, he held the cup out and away from himself, tilting it to consider the ordinary-looking brown liquid. “Innnnteresting . . . They might want to put a warning on that one.”  
  
“Why?” Martha asked,  
  
“It’s positively hallucinogenic for a lot of biochemistries. A cupful of that and _I’d_ be higher than a kite. Wouldn’t bother you at all, but you wouldn’t want it — tastes like socks.” He considered the cup a moment longer, then shrugged and moved on.  
  
Privately, Martha tried to picture the Doctor under the influence. The image seesawed between “hysterically funny” and “downright terrifying.” She was glad he hadn’t felt like taking a second taste of the tea in question.  
  
Two cups down the line, his expression brightened. “Say! That’s quite nice. Perfectly innocuous, too.” He offered the cup to Martha with a smile. “Here — take a taste.”  
  
Martha considered the fact that the tea’d had a Time Lord’s tongue run through it, then shrugged and accepted. God knew, he probably didn’t harbor any germs she could catch.  
  
The brew was an off-putting murky purple in color, but the aroma was appealing, and when she took a sip, she was surprised by a pleasant hint of wintergreen flavor.  
  
“That _is_ nice. Beats plain old Earl Grey, that’s for sure . . .”  
  
By the end of the session, the purple tea was still the hands-down favorite of both human and Time Lord palates. The Doctor ordered a pot of it for them to split while they studied the décor and pointed out accuracies and inaccuracies to each other, giggling over a few of the most obvious anachronisms.  
  
It was, quite possibly, the most relaxing time Martha had ever spent with the Doctor, and she was sorry to see it end. Still, they had the rest of the city to explore, and the Doctor had promised to show her a famous art gallery . . .  
  
“I’ll just settle up,” he told her. A thought struck him, and he grinned. “Maybe they’ve got some of that tea for sale — we could pick up a box to take back to the TARDIS.”  
  
Martha agreed enthusiastically. “Find out what it is, too — I’m curious now,” she told him.  
  
He ambled over to the counter while Martha studied a shelf full of antique teapots from all over the Galaxy. As he’d suspected, there was tea for sale, on display in decorative metal boxes, all embossed and brightly painted. As he waited for his turn to pay, he studied the designs of the containers and realized that each was a stylized representation of the source of the tea inside — flowers and twigs and fruits of all exotic sorts. Very attractive, really. Martha would like that touch, he was sure.  
  
The cashier was another green-tentacled Lorlex — the waiter’s xemale parent, if the Doctor was any judge of family resemblances — and he chatted for a moment (giving a heads up about the possible hallucinogen on the menu in the process) before getting down to business.  
  
“Do you happen to have any of that purple tea — what was it, number twenty-seven — in a box . . .?”he asked hopefully.  
  
“Of course, sir!” the Lorlex said cheerfully, reaching to a shelf with a practiced tentacle, and setting a brightly painted box on the counter. The Doctor looked at it . . . and blinked.  
  
The design wasn’t floral at all — rather, the box was covered with a pattern of gracefully intertwined purple . . . centipedes, it looked like. Close enough, anyway.  
  
“Erm. On second thought . . . maybe I’ll take a dozen of those excellent pastries to go, instead . . .”  
  
Martha was still looking over the teapots, fortunately. She grinned over her shoulder at him as he came up behind her.  
  
“This is wild! I had no idea tea was so popular out here. I mean, here’s a teapot that’s designed to work _underwater_. How do you drink tea underwater?”  
  
“Very carefully,” the Doctor told her solemnly, and she rolled her eyes.  
  
Catching sight of the bag he carried, she asked, “Did you get some of that tea, then . . .?”  
  
“Nope,” he said regretfully, popping the “p.” “They were out. Got us some more pastries though.”  
  
Martha, it turned out, was full, so the Doctor ended up munching all of the pastries himself. The end result was that Martha, though spared a genuinely intoxicated Doctor, had the remarkably similar experience of attending an art opening with a Time Lord on a sugar high.  
  
It was, if nothing else, a memorable ending to the day.  


* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=12790>


End file.
